Landlord Atlas

Can a landlord charge for a pet in Indiana, and what does the law require for an assistance animal?

Verified September 21, 2026 Correction September 28, 2026 All Indiana topics →

Indiana has no pet-deposit statute, no pet-rent or pet-fee rule and no deposit cap of any kind, so what a landlord charges for a pet is left entirely to the lease.

Cited to IC 22-9-7 (Emotional Support Animals in Housing) 22-9-7-1 through 22-9-7-15 and 16 more cited sources · Verified September 21, 2026

A refundable pet deposit counts as a security deposit, which means it must be returned, less itemized deductions, in a written notice within forty-five days of the end of the tenancy; a fee the lease makes non-refundable falls outside those rules altogether. No lease has to state a pet policy, Indiana has no mid-term rules section for a new pet rule to pass through, and no statute reaches breed, size or weight. The assistance-animal side is detailed. A landlord may not require any fee to maintain an emotional support animal, and that animal needs no training to qualify; a landlord may still charge for damage on the same terms as any other animal owner and may require a responsibilities addendum, and a landlord who permits the animal is immune from liability for injuries it causes. A landlord may ask for written verification only where the disability is not readily apparent, and only from one of four Indiana license classes who actually treats the person, never from someone whose only service is selling the letter. That chapter does not apply to an owner-occupied building of four or fewer families or to certain small single-family owners. Faking the need, or writing the letter without adequate knowledge of the person, is an infraction carrying up to $10,000. Indiana cities may not touch any of the money rules.

Indiana pets & assistance animals at a glance

Which law governs Indiana splits this page across two bodies of law that never meet. The money and lease side is the property title: article 31 of Title 32 carries the security-deposit definition at section 32-31-3-9 and the forty-five-day itemized-notice rule at section 32-31-3-12, and section 32-31-1-20 voids local ordinances regulating deposits, leasing terms, the rights of the parties and any fee a landlord charges. The assistance-animal side is the civil-rights articles of Title 22: IC 22-9-7, a fifteen-section chapter on emotional support animals in housing enacted in 2018, carries the documentation rule, the fee ban, the parity and immunity clauses and a five-branch infraction; IC 22-9-6 is an older guide-dog chapter that bars a refusal to accept a tenant; and the Indiana Fair Housing Act at IC 22-9.5 carries the reasonable-accommodation duty that both leading cases turn on, together with the exemptions that switch the 2018 chapter off. The Civil Rights Commission's rules at 910 IAC article 2 restate the accommodation duty and supply the one Indiana text that expressly makes a no-pets policy yield to an assistance animal.
Where in the state the answers differ The two sides of this page bind different landlords. Nothing in Indiana law regulates pet money at all, so on that side there is nothing to exempt anyone from. The emotional-support-animal chapter, by contrast, does not apply to a dwelling that the fair-housing act exempts: a building with living quarters for no more than four families where the owner keeps and occupies one of them, and a single-family house rented by an owner who owns no more than three such houses and rents without a broker or a prohibited advertisement, that second branch being limited to one rental in any twenty-four months where the owner was not the most recent resident. A reader works out which side of the line they are on from the number of units, whether the owner lives there, and whether a broker was used. The older guide-dog chapter carries no exemption at all and reaches every housing accommodation offered for rent in Indiana, expressly including a single-family residence letting one room.
Which landlords are covered

Not every landlord — an owner-occupied or unit-count exemption takes some landlords outside at least one of these rules.

The rule that excludes some landlords is the assistance-animal rule, not a money rule, because Indiana has no pet-money statute for anyone. The 2018 emotional-support-animal chapter does not apply to a dwelling exempt under the fair-housing act's exemption chapter (section 22-9-7-1). Those exemptions are a dwelling with living quarters occupied or intended for no more than four families where the owner maintains and occupies one of them, and a single-family house sold or rented by an owner who owns no more than three single-family houses at a time and acts without a real estate broker, agent or salesperson and without a prohibited notice or advertisement; the single-family branch is limited to one rental in any twenty-four-month period where the owner was not the most recent resident of the house (section 22-9.5-3-1). The Court of Appeals has held that the exemption is an affirmative defense the landlord must prove and that the house must actually be rented by the owner, so members who sign a lease in their own names rather than for the owning company cannot claim it. One caution the statute itself creates: section 22-9-7-1 speaks of a dwelling exempt from the requirements of the whole fair-housing article, while the exemption section exempts only from one chapter of it, and no Indiana court has construed the difference. The older guide-dog chapter and the fair-housing accommodation duty carry no such exemption chain and reach every rental.
Pet deposit

Yes, with no statutory limit.

Indiana has no pet-deposit statute and no deposit ceiling of any kind, so the size of a pet deposit is a matter for the lease. What decides its treatment is the definition: a security deposit is money paid to secure performance of a tenant's obligations, and the term includes any other amount of money or property returnable to the tenant on condition that the unit is returned in the condition the agreement requires (section 32-31-3-9, subsection (b), paragraph (3)). A refundable pet deposit is money of exactly that kind, so it carries the deposit rules: at the end of the tenancy the landlord returns it less accrued rent, damages from the tenant's noncompliance and unpaid utility or sewer charges, all itemized in a written notice delivered no more than forty-five days after the agreement ends and possession is delivered, and a landlord who fails to do that owes the whole deposit plus reasonable attorney's fees (section 32-31-3-12). The definition's exclusions are a closed list of two, neither of them about pets. No landlord is exempt from any of this, and the words pet, animal, dog and breed appear nowhere in the entire landlord-tenant article. A separate rule reaches the money side from the other direction: no fee at all may be required to maintain an emotional support animal, which is stated under assistance animals below.

Refundability: A refundable pet deposit is a security deposit by function and comes back on the ordinary terms. A non-refundable pet fee is not: the definition reaches only money returnable to the tenant, so a charge the lease makes non-returnable falls outside the deposit chapter altogether and is left to the contract.
Pet rent and pet fees

Yes — no statute caps, authorizes or forbids pet rent or a pet fee.

No Indiana statute addresses pet rent, a pet fee or any pet charge, and there is no general bar on non-refundable fees for a pet rule to run through: the words nonrefundable and non-refundable appear nowhere in the landlord-tenant article. Nor is there a reasonableness standard on a landlord's charges of the kind some states impose. The structural point is worth stating plainly: because the security-deposit definition reaches only money returnable to the tenant, a pet fee the lease makes non-refundable escapes the deposit chapter and nothing else picks it up, so an uncapped non-refundable pet fee and an uncapped monthly pet rent are both matters of pure contract in Indiana. The single express charge rule in Indiana housing law is not a pet rule at all: it bars a fee to maintain an emotional support animal, and it says nothing about what may be charged for a pet.
Pet policy in the lease, and changing it mid-tenancy

No — no statute requires a lease to state a pet policy, and no written-rules provision governs one.

Indiana requires nothing and supplies nothing. No statute requires a lease to say whether pets are allowed, requires a fact sheet or an attachment, conditions a pet charge on disclosure, or supplies a default when the lease is silent. There is also no landlord-rules section in the landlord-tenant article at all, so Indiana has no mid-term-change machinery a new pet rule would have to pass through, and no limit on the number, size or species of animals. No housing class must allow pets: the Civil Rights Commission's rules and the housing authority's rules carry no animal provision. A declawing ban was introduced in 2024 and again in 2025 and died in committee both times. One thing the landlord may do is expressly preserved: a landlord may require a tenant with an emotional support animal to sign an addendum or other agreement setting out the responsibilities of the animal's owner (section 22-9-7-14, paragraph (3)). That is a landlord's right, not a duty to have a policy.
Breed, size and weight restrictions

Yes.

No Indiana statute limits, authorizes or preempts a landlord's breed, size or weight rule, and no assistance-animal breed carve-out exists. The word breed appears nowhere in the property, civil-rights, insurance, criminal, civil-procedure, health or local-government titles; its only home in the Indiana Code is the agriculture and animals title, where it is about commercial dog breeders and livestock. Indiana's dog chapter runs to liability for bites, livestock-killing dogs, sale of dogs to laboratories and a spay-neuter requirement for animal care facilities, and it carries no breed clause and no preemption of breed-specific local ordinances. An Indiana city may therefore pass a breed-specific animal-control ordinance aimed at dog owners under its general home-rule power, while any ordinance aimed at what a landlord may charge or put in a lease is void, which is stated under local authority below. An assistance animal in Indiana is protected through the accommodation duty and never through a breed clause.
Assistance animals: the state instrument and who it binds

Yes — a state statute or rule sets what a landlord may request or what a certifier must meet for an assistance animal in housing. Both a statute and an administrative rule under it speak to it. State law incorporates a federal statute or codified regulation by reference.

Indiana has three instruments and they do different things. The 2018 chapter on emotional support animals in housing, in force since July 1, 2018, lets a landlord require written verification where the disability is not readily apparent, bars any fee to maintain the animal, preserves the landlord's right to charge for damage and to require an addendum, immunizes a landlord who permits the animal, and makes five kinds of misrepresentation an infraction. The older guide-dog chapter bars a person renting, leasing or providing real property for compensation from refusing to accept a person with a disability as a tenant because that person has a guide dog that assists with a particular disability, gives full and equal access to all housing accommodations offered for rent in Indiana, and routes a complaint to the Civil Rights Commission; it does not require a landlord to provide a higher degree of care for a person with a disability than for anyone else (sections 22-9-6-3, 22-9-6-4, 22-9-6-5 and 22-9-6-6). The duty that is actually litigated is the fair-housing act's: a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services, when they may be necessary to give a person an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, is unlawful, subject to a proviso that no dwelling need be made available to someone whose tenancy would be a direct threat to the health or safety of others or would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others (section 22-9.5-5-5). Both of Indiana's published decisions in this area run on that clause. The Commission's own rule repeats the duty and gives, as its first illustration, a blind applicant who wants to live with a dog guide in a building with a no-pets policy, and says that refusing is a violation.

Who it binds: The emotional-support-animal chapter binds every landlord except those the fair-housing act exempts. It does not apply to a dwelling exempt under the act's exemption chapter, which covers a dwelling with living quarters for no more than four families where the owner maintains and occupies one of them, and a single-family house rented by an owner holding no more than three such houses who acts without a broker and without a prohibited advertisement, limited to one rental in twenty-four months where the owner was not the most recent resident (sections 22-9-7-1 and 22-9.5-3-1). The exemption is an affirmative defense the landlord must prove, and the house must genuinely be rented by the owner. Two other instruments carry no exemption at all: the guide-dog chapter reaches every housing accommodation offered for rent, lease or compensation in Indiana, expressly including a single-family residence letting not more than one room (sections 22-9-6-2 and 22-9-6-3), and the fair-housing accommodation duty binds on its own terms. A caution the text itself creates: the exempting section speaks of a dwelling exempt from the requirements of the whole fair-housing article, while the exemption section exempts only from one chapter of it, and no Indiana court has construed that difference.

The rule's currency: 910 IAC 2-3-5 (Indiana Civil Rights Commission, article 2 on fair housing complaints; authority section 22-9.5-4-2), filed August 20, 1993, readopted in 2001, 2007, 2013 and most recently filed September 27, 2019, as the rule's own filing and readoption line prints it, read at edition year 2026 in the Indiana Administrative Code on the General Assembly's administrative-rules host.
What counts as an assistance animal 'Emotional support animal' means a companion animal that a health service provider has determined provides a benefit for an individual with a disability, which may include improving at least one symptom of the disability (section 22-9-7-6), and an animal does not need specific training to become one (section 22-9-7-8, subsection (b)). 'Dwelling' is any building or part of one occupied as, or designed for occupancy as, a residence by one or more families, or vacant land offered for such construction, and it expressly includes a recreational vehicle (section 22-9-7-2). 'Individual with a disability' follows the federal formula (section 22-9-7-5), and 'health service provider' is a closed list set out under documentation below. Indiana housing law defines 'service animal' nowhere: the dog-or-miniature-horse definition in the health title is expressly for its own chapter on public accommodations, and the seven-category list some summaries quote belongs to the employment chapter of the civil-rights article and says so in its own first words.
Documentation a landlord may request, and what a certifier must meet

The landlord's right to ask is gated. Only where the individual's disability is not readily apparent may a landlord who offers to rent a dwelling require written verification from a health service provider, and then only of three things: that the individual has a disability, that there is a disability-related need for the emotional support animal, and that the animal assists the individual in managing the disability (section 22-9-7-9). Where a request is made, the landlord may evaluate any documents submitted with it to verify the disability-related need (section 22-9-7-11). Indiana sets no bar on asking for a diagnosis or for medical records; the Court of Appeals has upheld a landlord's request for the nature of the impairment.

A licensed or qualified professional must certify. The law tests the certifier's conduct before issuing. A treatment relationship is required. An out-of-state provider is expressly allowed. A registration or certificate bought online does not, by itself, satisfy the state's rule.

Who may certify: A closed list of four Indiana license classes, each of whom provides medical services or treatment to the individual: a psychiatrist or physician licensed under the medicine article, a psychologist, a licensee under the behavioral health and human services article, which covers marriage and family therapists, social workers, clinical social workers, mental health counselors and addiction counselors, and an advanced practice registered nurse. The definition then excludes any one of them whose sole service to the individual is to provide a verification letter for a fee (section 22-9-7-4). An individual who moves from another state may instead supply documentation from a physician, psychiatrist, social worker or other mental health professional licensed in that state, so long as the individual has an ongoing treatment relationship with that provider, and the same paid-letter exclusion applies (section 22-9-7-10).

The relationship test: Indiana sets no day count. The in-state test is built into the definition, which reaches only a listed licensee who provides medical services or treatment to the individual, and the out-of-state path requires an ongoing treatment relationship with the provider who writes the letter (sections 22-9-7-4 and 22-9-7-10).

The certifier's duties: Indiana places no drafting duty on the provider, but it does place two prohibitions, and both carry the same sanction as a tenant's misrepresentation. A health service provider who verifies an individual's disability status and need for an emotional support animal without adequate professional knowledge of the individual's condition to provide a reliable verification, or who charges a fee for providing a written verification and provides no other service to the individual, commits a Class A infraction (section 22-9-7-12, subsection (5)). The chapter does not route such a finding to the provider's licensing board; a board's general powers over unprofessional conduct are the only available route and the statute does not name them.

Indiana tests who wrote the letter, not what the letter says. A landlord may require written verification only where the disability is not readily apparent, and then only of three things: the disability, the disability-related need, and how the animal helps. The letter must come from one of four Indiana license classes who provides medical services or treatment to the person, or, for someone who has moved from another state, from a physician, psychiatrist, social worker or other mental health professional licensed there with whom the person has an ongoing treatment relationship. The key limit sits inside the definition: a provider whose sole service to the individual is supplying a verification letter for a fee is not a health service provider at all, and charging for the letter while providing no other service is itself an infraction. That is why a certificate bought from an online seller does not work in Indiana — not because any statute rates it as weak evidence, but because the seller is written out of the definition. Beyond that, Indiana sets no minimum treatment period, no expiry or re-evaluation clock, no prescribed or prohibited form, no bar on asking for medical records, no vaccination clause, and no deadline or duty to answer in writing. How a landlord must handle the request comes from case law rather than statute: a landlord may conduct a meaningful review, including requesting documentation and opening a dialogue, and a tenant who does not answer causes a breakdown in the process.
Charges for an assistance animal

No — a state bar on an extra charge reaches an emotional support animal on the face of the definition it hangs on; the bar is an express no-extra-charge clause, in a statute.

A person who offers to rent or otherwise make available a dwelling may not require an individual with a disability to pay a fee to maintain an emotional support animal in the dwelling (section 22-9-7-13), and the animal the bar protects is a companion animal that needs no training, so the bar plainly reaches an animal kept for emotional support. Two limits matter. The words of the ban are about a fee to maintain the animal, so it reads onto a pet fee or pet rent; it does not use the word deposit, and Indiana has no pet-deposit statute to carve out, so a demand for a pet deposit is resisted through the accommodation duty instead, which is exactly what happened in the 2025 decision. And the express bar is written for emotional support animals only: Indiana has no service-animal charge bar in housing at all, because the guide-dog chapter bars a refusal to accept a tenant rather than a charge, and the service-animal fee bar in the health title is about a fee for access to a public accommodation. A service animal is still protected in practice, through the same accommodation duty, but not by this section.

The definition it hangs on: 'Emotional support animal' means a companion animal that a health service provider has determined provides a benefit for an individual with a disability, which may include improving at least one (1) symptom of the disability (IC 22-9-7-6); and an animal does not need specific training to become an emotional support animal (IC 22-9-7-8(b)).

Remedy: The fee ban carries no remedy of its own, and no other Indiana statute points at the chapter, so the route that works is a reasonable-accommodation claim under the fair-housing act. That is the route the Civil Rights Commission and the Court of Appeals took in the 2025 decision, where a refusal to waive the pet deposit and the monthly pet fee for a support animal was held unlawful and the final order carried emotional-distress damages plus a $10,000 civil penalty for a first discriminatory housing practice (section 22-9.5-6-15, subsection (b), paragraph (1)). An act effective July 1, 2026 left that hearing route unchanged but changed the court route: the Commission may no longer represent a private individual in a lawsuit, after an election to go to court the complainant rather than the Commission files the suit, and in a suit the Commission brings over a pattern or practice of discrimination or an issue of general public importance it represents only the state and the court may no longer award money damages.
Damage caused by an assistance animal

The tenant is liable for damage the animal causes like any other tenant, by express words.

Parity is written into the chapter. A landlord may still require a tenant with an emotional support animal to comply with the rental agreement and the other rules applicable to the dwelling on the same terms as other residents, to pay for the cost of repairs for damage the animal causes in the same manner as a resident who keeps an animal that is not an emotional support animal, and to sign an addendum or other agreement setting out the responsibilities of the animal's owner (section 22-9-7-14).

Landlord immunity: Subject to any other federal, state or local law, a landlord who permits an individual with a disability to keep an emotional support animal as a reasonable accommodation under the federal Fair Housing Act and its amendments and regulations, section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act, the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, or any other applicable state or local law, is not liable for an injury to another individual caused by that animal (section 22-9-7-15).
Misrepresenting an assistance animal

An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: an infraction, reaching the person claiming the animal, the certifier who signs, and a person who lies to a provider to obtain documentation. Penalty terms: Class A infraction — a judgment of up to $10,000 may be entered for the violation.

The offense is written for housing and it reaches both sides of the letter. It applies to an individual with a disability that is not readily apparent who submits a request to keep an emotional support animal in a dwelling, and to the health service provider who verifies that person's disability status and need. Five branches each make a Class A infraction: misrepresenting to the landlord that the person has a disability or a disability-related need requiring the animal; making a materially false statement to one's own health service provider to obtain the documentation; giving the landlord a document that misrepresents that the animal is an emotional support animal; fitting an animal that is not an emotional support animal with a harness, collar, vest or sign that would make a reasonable person believe it is one; and, for a provider, verifying without adequate professional knowledge of the person's condition to give a reliable verification, or charging a fee for the written verification while providing no other service (section 22-9-7-12). A judgment of up to $10,000 may be entered. No prior warning is required. Indiana has no criminal misrepresentation offense for animals: the criminal title carries only a cruelty-to-a-service-animal section, and nothing in it is about a false claim.

Who enforces it: An infraction in Indiana is a civil judgment rather than a criminal conviction, brought and enforced under the infractions chapter of the civil-procedure title, where a judgment of up to ten thousand dollars may be entered for a Class A infraction (section 34-28-5-4, subsection (a)). The chapter routes nothing to a licensing board and creates no private damages claim.
Can cities add their own rules

In part — state law preempts the kinds of local rule named as barred, and any power named is one state law grants.

Indiana keeps three things apart and a reader needs all three. First, a preemption: a unit of local government may not regulate security deposits, lease applications, leasing terms and conditions, disclosures, the rights of the parties to a lease, tenant screening or any fee a landlord charges, and an ordinance that does is void and unenforceable, so a municipal pet-deposit cap, pet-rent cap, pet-fee ban or pet-disclosure duty fails several times over. Second, two limits on that preemption: it does not reach privately owned property funded expressly to provide reduced rents to low or moderate income tenants, though a unit still may not require a landlord to take part in a federal housing assistance program, and the fair-housing act separately preserves reasonable local restrictions on the maximum number of occupants and on health and safety standards. Third, animal control: Indiana neither preempts nor specially authorizes local breed rules, so a municipal animal-control ordinance aimed at dog owners rests on the general home-rule power, under which a unit may exercise any power that is not expressly denied by the constitution or by statute and not expressly granted to another entity (section 36-1-3-5). Indiana's fair-housing act contains no devolution clause; the Commission may refer a complaint to a local agency, which is referral rather than devolution. No Indiana city pet ordinance in housing is stated here.

Local deposit or fee rules barred: A unit of local government may not regulate, by ordinance or otherwise, security deposits or any fees charged by a landlord with respect to privately owned real property located in the unit, unless the General Assembly has authorized the regulation, and any ordinance that does so is void and unenforceable. A separate subsection bars a unit from regulating rental rates, through a zoning ordinance or otherwise. A municipal pet-deposit cap or pet-fee ban therefore has no effect. Text: IC 32-31-1-20 · (b), (c)(2), (c)(7).

Another express preemption: The same subsection reaches beyond money. A unit may not regulate the screening process a landlord uses to approve tenants, lease applications, leasing terms and conditions, disclosures about the property, the lease or the parties' rights and responsibilities, or the rights of the parties to a lease, and any ordinance that does is void and unenforceable. A local rule requiring a lease to state a pet policy, or barring a particular pet term, dies on those limbs. The preemption does not apply to privately owned property for which government funds or benefits have been allocated for the express purpose of providing reduced rents to low or moderate income tenants, and that carve-out is itself subject to a separate section barring a unit from requiring a landlord to take part in a federal housing assistance program or a similar program. Text: IC 32-31-1-20 · (a), (c)(1), (c)(3), (c)(4), (c)(5), (c)(6).
Housing classes with their own pet rule No manufactured-home park, publicly financed, public-housing or senior-housing rule departs from the answers above
Insurance and dog breeds No statute restricts an insurer's use of dog breed in underwriting
How state law refers to the federal rules Indiana names federal law in its own operative text and adopts no federal agency document. The landlord's immunity is conditioned on the animal having been permitted as a reasonable accommodation under the federal Fair Housing Act and any amendments and regulations to it, section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, or any other applicable state or local law (section 22-9-7-15), which is a live reference to the federal statutes and their regulations rather than a frozen one. The definition of an individual with a disability follows the federal formula. Nothing else is borrowed: no federal agency notice, no joint statement and no federal housing regulation is adopted anywhere in the emotional-support-animal chapter, the guide-dog chapter, the fair-housing act or the Civil Rights Commission's rules. The status of the federal instruments is on the federal section of the 50-state page.
Changes already signed into law P.L.152-2026, section 344 (House Enrolled Act 1003, boards and commissions): The section that carries Indiana's reasonable-accommodation duty, section 22-9.5-5-5, is printed on the official host in two versions, one in force until July 1, 2027 and one from that date. The two were compared line by line and the only difference is in subsection (e), where compliance with the rules of the fire prevention and building safety commission becomes compliance with the rules of the department of homeland security, a consequence of an act that reorganizes state boards and commissions. The accommodation clause and the direct-threat proviso are word for word identical, so no answer on this page changes on that date. Text: IC 22-9.5-5-5 · (c)(2), (e), (f).
Leading court decisions

Fike Investments, LLC v. Wilson, No. 23A-EX-3091 (Ind. Ct. App. Jan. 23, 2025) (residential setting; bears on charges for an assistance animal): A landlord who refused a disabled tenant's request to waive the pet deposit and the monthly pet fee for his support animal, as reasonable accommodations for his disability, violated the Indiana Fair Housing Act and the Indiana Civil Rights Law. The small-landlord exemption is an affirmative defense the landlord must prove; it requires that the house be rented by the owner, so members who signed the lease in their own names rather than for the owning company could not claim it and were personally liable for the damages and the penalty. The order carried emotional-distress damages and a $10,000 civil penalty for a first discriminatory housing practice.

Furbee v. Wilson, No. 19A-PL-1756 (Ind. Ct. App. Mar. 30, 2020) (residential setting; bears on assistance-animal documentation): Before deciding a tenant's request for an accommodation a landlord may conduct a meaningful review, which includes requesting documentation and opening a dialogue. Where the tenant's therapist letter identified no disability and no symptoms and the tenant did not answer the landlord's follow-up, the tenant caused a breakdown in the process, the landlord could not meaningfully review the request, and the landlord was entitled to summary judgment on the accommodation claim. The case arose before the 2018 emotional-support-animal chapter took effect and was decided under the fair-housing act's accommodation duty.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Indiana Pet & Assistance Animal Laws (verified September 21, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/pets/indiana/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Indiana assistance-animal documentation at a glance

Each row is what the state's own statute or rule says about that slot; a row that reads not stated is a slot no state text addresses. The full text of each slot, with its section, is in the table above.

Slot What the state's text says
Who may certify, and on what test A licensed or qualified professional must certify. The law tests the certifier's conduct before issuing. A treatment relationship is required. An out-of-state provider is expressly allowed.
The certifier's minimum relationship period A qualitative test, no day count
Telehealth Not stated
Online registration or certificate Does not satisfy the rule by itself
Form Not stated
Medical records Not stated
Written answer from the landlord Not stated
Annual re-evaluation Not stated
Proof of vaccination or licensing Not stated

Federal law on pets and assistance animals, in every state

The federal layer for the pets and assistance-animals topic, carried once for the whole site. It is a dated history rather than a single rule: the Fair Housing Act's accommodation duty has not changed since 1988 and the regulation under it has never contained the word animal, while the HUD guidance that most writing on this subject still quotes was withdrawn in September 2025, permanently rescinded in May 2026, and replaced by an enforcement position that governs HUD's own cause determinations and nothing else. Every row names who it binds, and most of the rows that carry real figures bind only federally assisted, public or rural-development housing. No state record restates these rows; a state record says only where its own law references or extends them. Each row below says who it binds before it says what it does. The full text of each row, with its citations, is on the 50-state page.

Notes and caveats

Common questions: Indiana pets & assistance animals

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Can a landlord charge a pet deposit in Indiana, and is there a limit?
Yes, with no statutory limit. Indiana has no pet-deposit statute and no deposit ceiling of any kind, so the size of a pet deposit is a matter for the lease.
Can a landlord charge pet rent or a non-refundable pet fee in Indiana?
Yes — no statute caps, authorizes or forbids pet rent or a pet fee. No Indiana statute addresses pet rent, a pet fee or any pet charge, and there is no general bar on non-refundable fees for a pet rule to run through: the words nonrefundable and non-refundable appear nowhere in the landlord-tenant article.
Does an Indiana lease have to state a pet policy?
No — no statute requires a lease to state a pet policy, and no written-rules provision governs one. Indiana requires nothing and supplies nothing.
Can an Indiana landlord restrict pets by breed, size or weight?
Yes. No Indiana statute limits, authorizes or preempts a landlord's breed, size or weight rule, and no assistance-animal breed carve-out exists.
Does Indiana have its own assistance-animal law for rentals?
Yes — a state statute or rule sets what a landlord may request or what a certifier must meet for an assistance animal in housing. Both a statute and an administrative rule under it speak to it.
What documentation can an Indiana landlord ask for when a tenant requests an assistance animal?
The landlord's right to ask is gated. Only where the individual's disability is not readily apparent may a landlord who offers to rent a dwelling require written verification from a health service provider, and then only of three things: that the individual has a disability, that there is a disability-related need for the emotional support animal, and that the animal assists the individual in managing the disability (section 22-9-7-9).
Can an Indiana landlord charge a pet deposit or pet rent for an emotional support animal?
No — a state bar on an extra charge reaches an emotional support animal on the face of the definition it hangs on; the bar is an express no-extra-charge clause, in a statute. A person who offers to rent or otherwise make available a dwelling may not require an individual with a disability to pay a fee to maintain an emotional support animal in the dwelling (section 22-9-7-13), and the animal the bar protects is a companion animal that needs no training, so the bar plainly reaches an animal kept for emotional support.
What is the penalty for falsely claiming an assistance animal in Indiana?
An offense or sanction that reaches a misrepresentation made to obtain housing: an infraction, reaching the person claiming the animal, the certifier who signs, and a person who lies to a provider to obtain documentation. Penalty terms: Class A infraction — a judgment of up to $10,000 may be entered for the violation.

Changes since last full verification

The Verified date above (September 21, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).

Citations

How this record was verified: Direct reading of the Indiana Code 2026 on the General Assembly's own host, the edition that already carries 2026 public laws in its credit lines and whose session root names the Second Regular Session of the 124th General Assembly. Nine whole titles were retrieved as raw text and read with word-bounded term lists and a nearest-citation locator: Title 15 (agriculture and animals), Title 16 (health), Title 22 (labor and safety, which carries the civil-rights articles), Title 25 (professions), Title 27 (insurance), Title 32 (property), Title 34 (civil procedure), Title 35 (criminal law) and Title 36 (local government). Inside those, the following were read in full: the whole of article 31 of Title 32, all fourteen chapters; IC 22-9-7 (emotional support animals in housing), all fifteen sections with every credit line; IC 22-9-6 (equal access to housing for persons with disabilities); the whole of IC 22-9.5, the Indiana Fair Housing Act, including chapter 3 on exemptions and section 22-9.5-5-5; IC 16-32-3 and IC 16-32-3.5 (white cane and service animals); IC 25-1-9.5 (telehealth); IC 34-28-5-4 for the infraction judgment; and IC 36-1-3-5 and IC 36-1-3-8.5. The Indiana Administrative Code was read at edition year 2026: the Civil Rights Commission's articles 1, 2 and 3 of title 910 and the Housing and Community Development Authority's article 1 of title 930, each retrieved as the official record and read in full, with the filing and readoption line of 910 IAC 2-3-5 read as printed. Every bill of the 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 sessions, 4,706 in all, was listed from the General Assembly's own service and filtered on animal, pet, breed, emotional support, assistance, landlord, tenant, security deposit, fair housing, civil rights, service dog, guide dog, rental and housing terms; the three enacted measures in range were retrieved as enrolled acts and read in full. Two published Court of Appeals opinions were read in full from their own text: Fike Investments, LLC v. Wilson, decided January 23, 2025, and Furbee v. Wilson, decided March 30, 2020; a third decision was identified as a memorandum decision that Indiana's appellate rules make non-citable and was set aside.

What was read to state each absence on this page: